The Toymakers(113)
The following afternoon, Cathy was involved in writing a letter to Emil, when a knock came at the door. Writing to Emil demanded great patience and composure, for leaving the Emporium had laid him lower than it had Cathy herself – and, Cathy was given to believe, he had not truly left, for he still flitted back and forth between the home of one of his estranged sons (much to the horror of their mother), and the barren shopfloor itself. The distraction of the door knocking, while the rest of the family gambolled with Sirius in the back garden, was a deep relief.
The man on the doorstep was the very same who had ogled Sirius with such wonder over the garden fence. He was a rotund little man, evidently given to pastries – and indeed there were the shreds of some sugary foodstuff still sparkling in his whiskers of white and grey – but he had dressed incongruously smartly for a neighbourly visit. In his hands was a paper bag that cast Cathy back half a century in time: brown paper and green ink, with the insignia of Papa Jack’s Emporium up and down its sides.
‘Forgive me, madam. I’m of the hope you won’t reject a little distraction on a Sunday morning. My name is Harold Elderkin. You won’t have noticed me, I’m sure, but I couldn’t help observe your arrival on our quiet little street. I’m afraid you’ll think me a spook, an espionage artist par excellence, but what spying I’ve done has been quite accidental! I couldn’t help it, you see, that …’
As if on cue, Sirius darted into the hall and let out a series of pillowy barks at the stranger at the door. ‘Sirius,’ she said, ‘do calm down. This is Mr Elderkin, come from …’
‘Good Lord,’ said Harold, ‘I was right! Until yesterday afternoon, I don’t believe I’d seen one of these in more than fifty years. We coveted these as lads. I would have cut off half my own arm to open one of these on a Christmas morning. I’m right, aren’t I? This is vintage stuff. Vintage Emporium … And you …’
‘I worked there,’ said Cathy, ‘once upon a time.’
‘I should say that you did,’ said Harold, giving weight to Cathy’s first impression that here was a man who would be happy talking to a lamp post, if only he could find a lamp post happy to listen, ‘and I remember you, madam. When I was a boy, I was boarded at a little place in Lambeth, a place called Sir Josiah’s. A squalid little place, and I dare say you haven’t given it a second thought in a generation, but … that was home, to me and my lot. Day in day out, with little to look forward to, until … the visitors from the Emporium.’
Cathy thought back: the summer trips, the carriage over the river, the orphaned boys swarming in the yard.
She stepped back. ‘Please Mr Elderkin, come in. I’m delighted you came.’
Harold Elderkin revealed himself a man of the most nervous disposition. Three times he declined tea before, finally, asking plaintively if he might partake of a small cup. Biscuits were proffered twice before he lined them up on a saucer and Cathy could see, in the way his fingers twitched, how eagerly he wanted to cram them into his gullet. Biscuits, he explained, had been in short supply when he was a lad.
‘I remember Sir Josiah’s,’ Cathy began, once Harold was settled, with Sirius up on his lap. ‘We would go there every summer, with stock from the winter before. Always my husband and me, and then my daughter. A summer day at Sir Josiah’s could rival first frost almost every year for its spectacle. All of those children waiting up against the windows, or spilling out into the yard …’
‘Well, that was me,’ Harold replied, with a modicum of pride – for to be remembered by an Emporium Lady was to fulfil the wish of his childhood. ‘Yes, Sir Josiah’s is a place that’s lodged up in this noggin of mine more than most. You know how that feels, I shouldn’t wonder. If I might be so bold … what happened to the Emporium, Mrs Godman? How could a place like that just shut up its doors and …’ He faltered, started wringing his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve spoken out of turn.’
‘You haven’t. It’s only … I wouldn’t know where to begin. A story like that has a thousand beginnings. I should need all night, and my grandchildren …’
‘I’ve had an inconsequential kind of life, Mrs Godman. I did my bit, I made a few friends, I had a good number of splendid luncheons, and now I spend my time pottering up and down the Finchley Road. I’ve been to the pictures twice this week already, and neither time for a matinee I cared to see. This Friday, I’m going to a department store. But when I think of the Emporium the way it used to be, why …’ Something must have caught in his throat, because suddenly he fell silent. ‘Oh, Mrs Godman, I didn’t mean to suggest … Well, it was so long ago, and fortunes can change. What happened to the place, well, who would have predicted? Hard times have fallen on so many in our lives.’ He stopped again, certain he had pursued the conversation into some dreadful quagmire from which he might never extricate himself. ‘What I meant to say was … You’ve lived a remarkable life, Mrs Godman. I should hope I might hear about it some time. And, if you don’t mind me saying, I feel … honoured to be sitting here with you. My Maud didn’t want me coming, she said I was to make a great fool of myself, but I could hardly stay away, not after I saw this old mutt here. And then, well, there’s the real reason I came …’ Harold shifted, depositing Sirius back on to the carpet, and brought up the bag he had brought with him.